


Five Times Those Ghoulish Plotters Tried to Kill Mike The Durable (and One Time They Did)

by AstriferousSprite



Category: Historical RPF
Genre: (the successful kind), 1930s, 5+1 Things, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Asphyxiation, Attempted Murder, Gen, Great Depression, Insurance Fraud, Murder, Poison, That should cover it, of the non-erotic kind, seeming immortality, whew
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-30
Updated: 2017-08-30
Packaged: 2018-12-21 15:42:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11947383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AstriferousSprite/pseuds/AstriferousSprite
Summary: The country is in a deep depression, and Tony Marino is desperate for some money. Unfortunately, it's damn near impossible for him to get his hands on it.Or: some guys try to commit insurance fraud. Hilarity ensues.





	Five Times Those Ghoulish Plotters Tried to Kill Mike The Durable (and One Time They Did)

**Author's Note:**

> So for clarification, Michael Malloy was an actual person, and while some of the dialogue might be made up, [the murder attempts actually happened,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Malloy) and it was glorious.  
> Note: this story doesn't go into too much graphic detail, but there are descriptions of the various murder tactics, so some discretion is advised.

Tony’s fallen on hard times.

It’s no surprise that the Depression’s made everyone’s lives miserable, but the barkeep hoped that at least everyone would be tempted to drink their sorrows away. Instead, the flow of customers has stalled—and worse, the few regulars are rarely bothered to even pay the tab. In short, business these days is bad.

He lets this slip over drinks one July evening, sitting at the bar with his friends. “Makes you wish you knew someone who’ll just kiss off and leave behind some cash, you know?”

Franky’s eyes shift to the side. “I think I found your guy.”

Confused, Tony and Daniel glance over to where he’s looking—and their eyes catch a figure, slumped on the floor in a deep, drunken slumber.

Tony knows this guy; he’s a homeless Irish named Michael Malloy. That’s about all he knows about him on a personal level—but when it comes to the speakeasy, Mike seems practically resistant to paying his outrageous tab.

He’s perfect.

“It’ll be so easy,” says Franky. “You take out insurance on Malloy—and I can handle the rest.”

Tony nods. “Don’t think he got much longer to live, anyhow,” he says, downing another shot of whiskey. “And if he’s trying to drink himself to an early grave, why not help him out a bit?”

He looks over at Daniel, who nods.

So, it is set. Old Michael Malloy’s death is sealed from this very moment.

 

_I._

It takes some time for the plan to start.

It’s his bartender friend Red who finally manages to take out a few insurance policies on Mike; all he has to do is convince the old man to pose as his relative in exchange for free alcohol, and it works. If all goes well, they’ll be set to gain over 3,000 from his death.

And there’s no question as to how it’ll happen. As one of Tony’s regulars, the bastard willingly drinks anything that’s in front of him. So, he offers him all the alcohol he wants, free of charge (“competition is rough, I gotta soften up”), knowing full well that as the drinks keep coming, eventually all the alcohol is ought to kill him one way or another.

But it doesn’t.

Tony keeps up the free drinks, hoping that one of these days old Mike will pass out and hit his head, but he doesn’t. Every evening, he stumbles in, chugs hooch like there’s no tomorrow, and stumbles out—and he’s still well enough to walk back in the next evening.

It drives Tony crazy. Surely, there’s gotta be a different way to make him go west, because clearly liquor just ain’t cutting it.

And fortunately, Red has an idea.

 

_II._

“I say, we oughta just shoot him in the head,” Tony grumbles on the fourth night of Mike’s unlimited booze run. “There’s just no amount of alcohol that’ll kill this old crumb.”

Red grunts. “Don’t seem like we can get away with that. We fill him with lead, and before you know it it’ll be the hotsquat for us. _Zap._ ”

“Well, what’s _your_ idea?” he snaps, waving his hands.

“We keep liquoring him up,” says Red, holding up his hand before Tony can interject, “but we switch it out. Replace it with wood alcohol.”

Tony’s eyes fly open. “Oh, that’s _brilliant,_ ” he whispers. “No doubt that’ll do him in.”

“Yeah,” says Daniel, who’s actually _smiling._ “Just fill ‘im up with wood, and we’ll see what happens.”

For the first time in his life, Tony buys a few cans of cheap wood alcohol, and waits for their victim to arrive. Sure enough, the door swings open, and in lurches good ol’ Michael Malloy, stumbling towards the bar. “Ain’t I thirsty tonight!” he declares, grinning wide.

Tony smiles at him—half professionalism, half gloating. The first few glasses are filled with the usual whiskey, but come the fourth, he ditches it and heads straight for the poison.

He doesn’t like to mess with this stuff—almost everyone and their grandma knows that even a tiny amount of wood is guaranteed to kill you. So there’s no doubt in his mind that one pure shot will take down Mike for good.

He downs the shot, then looks back up at Tony with a wide grin.

Fine, then. _Two_ shots will take him down.

Five shots later, Mike’s still upright and holding out his glass for more—drunk as a rat but clearly still alive. _For the love of God._

Nevertheless, Tony doesn’t let his stress show, and instead bids a cordial farewell to Michael as he hobbles out.

Like clockwork, the old bum returns the next evening. And just the same as the night before, no amount of poison liquor manages to snuff him. Throughout the entire week, he just seems completely impervious to the wood, downing it like it’s whiskey.

On day eight, though, it seems their luck might change.

Tony’s serving up Michael as he has been, when the drunk gives a lurch and falls unconscious to the floor.

Tony’s heart jolts. “Go and check on him,” he whispers to Franky, who leaps to his feet and kneels beside Michael. After all, if any one of them is qualified to check if their victim is truly dead, it should be their undertaker.

Franky feels his pulse, listens to his breathing, and reports that he’s barely hanging on. They’re so close now—finally, all their effort might be rewarded.

Any moment now.

Michael’s breaths are slow and heavy, says Franky. He should be close.

The minutes pass.

A ragged breath. Tony knocks on the counter, praying it'll be his last.

And then—a yawn.

And that damned old Mike sits up, stretching his arms and grinning wildly. “Oh, I ain't done just yet, lads.”

 

_III._

The gang is getting desperate.

Poison alcohol is eventually swapped out for actual poison. Tony tries antifreeze, turpentine, horse liniment; even _rat poison_ isn’t enough to kill Michael. He drinks down every drop, licks his lips and demands another.

At this rate, he’s sure to go bankrupt before Mike even gets a _whiff_ of death; but Franky thinks he has the perfect plan. “I recall seeing a man perish after consuming a meal of oysters and whiskey,” he says, folding his hands over the countertop. “It seems that when taken with oysters, alcohol is certain to cause indigestion, as it tends to preserve the oysters.”

“This better work,” says Tony, glaring at the undertaker.

Predictably, Michael is delighted with the new snack, and is sure to slowly savor each oyster between shots of whatever poison is in his glass. He asks for more, and Tony eagerly sets down his cards to prepare another batch of wood alcohol-laced oysters. But no matter how many the old man consumes, he’s unaffected, and declares them delicious before belching. Loudly.

Red tries next, preparing sandwich after unspeakable sandwich. Tony sees every foul ingredient the barkeep places between those two slices of bread: rotted sardines, thumbtacks, metal shavings, shards of glass… his gut aches sharply just looking at them. There’s no chance he could survive swallowing _that,_ right?

Michael chews.

Anxious, Tony can’t help but glance over his cards to see when he’ll double over in agony as is stomach is torn to shreds. But that God-damned Irish Rasputin finishes each one, licks his fingers, and gleefully asks for another.

At that point, Tony comes to the realization that nothing that man eats or drinks will cause him any harm; they need to start being more aggressive.

And he knows just what to do.

 

_IV._

“Remember Mabelle Carson?” Tony asks of Franky about a month after this entire fruitless endeavor began.

“The lady you offed last year?” he says, taking a sip of (non-poisoned) whiskey. “Yeah, I remember her.”

Joseph—a new member of their Trust—lifts his eyebrows. “You already successfully killed someone?” he asks, leaning in. “How did you—”

“Froze her to death,” he says, leaning back in his chair. “Liquored her up, doused her in ice water, and threw her out the window. Coroner said she died of pneumonia, and I was able to collect on the two thousand under her name.”

“Ice water,” repeats John, another new member. “Are you suggesting that we try that on ol’ Mike?”

“It worked so well last time,” says Tony casually, “couldn’t hurt to give it a try.”

So, as soon as Michael drinks himself into a stupor, they toss him into Franky’s car, head to the nearest park, and dump him into the snow. For good measure, they rip his shirt off and dump bottle after bottle of ice-cold water onto his chest. If all goes well, old Michael will go just as Mabelle did before him: just another victim of the cold.

Tony can’t help but feel proud of himself as he heads home; the old bastard hadn’t even stirred as they killed him. By tomorrow morning, his obituary should be a footnote in the papers, and they’ll collect on his life with ease.

Which is why it’s a bit of a nasty surprise when he walks into his speakeasy the next morning and finds Mike sleeping in the basement.

He doesn’t scream. Really, he doesn’t. Instead, he merely looks on with shock as the drunk shakes himself awake with a loud yawn and, upon noticing Tony, a gleeful, “Top of the morning to ye!”

Tony shakes his head, wide-eyed. “How did you—”

“Ay, well, I was feeling a wee bit chilly,” he says, as casually as one would describe the weather, “and Murphy was kind enough to let me in.”

Silently, Tony makes a note in his mind to yell at Red the next time he sees him. “Uh-huh.”

“But anyhow!” Michael cheerfully leaps to his feet. “I sure am dyin’ for a drink, lad.”

 

_V._

John comes up with their next plot. “I say we just run him over,” he said during another meeting. “Shouldn’t be too hard.”

“Tin-Ear” Smith, another new cohort, nervously drums his fingers on the counter. “Doesn’t sound right,” he grunts. “Too likely the coppers’ll find out.”

John huffs. “Well, _I_ think it’s a good idea. And it might actually _work._ ”

“He’s right,” says Tony, glancing over at the indignant John. “Nothing’s killing the guy, but ramming? No one can survive that.”

“True,” says Franky, “but we can’t use one of our own cars. It’s too risky.”

“No problem,” says Joseph, grinning. “I can hook you fellas up with a guy—a cab driver, you see—and he’ll be sure to help us.”

Another benefactor. Tony glances at Franky and Red, who cock their heads in a manner that says _eh, might as well._

The cabbie, Harry Green, is thankfully willing to help—even if it is for a cut of the deal. John and Red hold up the drunken Michael in the middle of the street, while everyone else crams themselves into Harry’s cab, desperate for this to work.

It doesn’t start off smoothly; Joseph swears he sees someone and begs for Harry to stop, and Mike proves to be quick at escaping—he leaps away from them at least twice. The third time, Harry backs up, and races towards him—quickly.

Daniel looks ill. Tony clenches his fists. Joseph covers his face.

Finally, they hear a definitive _thump_ as the cab hits Michael’s body, and another thud as he collapses onto the street.

“He’s dead,” says Franky. “He’s gotta be dead.”

“You gonna check that for us?” asks Tony, until they hear the faint roar of an engine—someone’s coming. In a panic, Harry pulls away from the scene, and no one’s certain if they succeeded or not.

Red—the one who claimed to be related to Mike in the first place—is the one with the arduous task of calling hospital after hospital after morgue after morgue to try and find out where he went. Scanning the obituaries, there’s not a mention of a drunk hit by a car.

The truth reveals itself a few weeks later. Tony notices Franky eyeing up another raucous drunk with a steely gaze, when the door swings open, and—

“Oh, _fuck me,_ ” hisses Tony, nearly dropping the glass he’s polishing.

Because of _course,_ that’s Michael Malloy hobbling towards the bar, hardly looking any worse for the wear, save for a few bandages.

“Boy, do I have a story for you!” he exclaims, sitting down with the same drunken grace as usual.

Tony tries not to grimace.

 

_(+I.)_

They have one last attempt.

The gang drags the unconscious Michael back to Red’s apartment, and gently set him down. Tony then takes a tube connected to the gas light, shoves it into Michael’s mouth, wraps a towel around his face, and prays.

And finally. _Finally,_ his prayers are answered. Because within the hour, Franky declares Michael Malloy definitively dead, as everyone else around him whoops with glee.

That’s it. He’s gone. Off to the next world. Ready to push daisies.

And all that’s left is to bury the son of a bitch and collect their well-earned suds.

Franky procures a friend who is able to officially declare him dead of “lobar pneumonia” and get him into the dirt as quickly as possible. They cash in on one of their policies—a measly 800 dollars, hastily divided—and Franky is starting to needle the other insurance company into giving them their cash, when things start going downhill fast.

See, when you somehow manage to resist death five times, word gets around. You become a sort of legend. And sure enough, the news of “Mike the Durable” spreads quickly among the city, moving from bar counter to bar counter, until the last people on Earth the Trust wanted to know about all this find out.

 

“You heard what happened to ol’ Iron Mike?” asks one of Tony’s customers over a glass of whiskey. “Heard the police caught wind o’what happened to him—they’re having his body exhumed.”

“Really?” says Tony, doing his best to keep his voice level. “That’s interesting.”

It gets worse. The papers report that Michael’s body contained a lethal dose of carbon monoxide, marking the Trust as suspect. To make matters worse, Harry and Franky’s doctor friend squeal and testify against them in court.

Their fates are sealed; Tony, Franky, Red, and Daniel are all convicted of murder and sentenced to death. As for the others, Harry’s snitching lowered his sentence to a mere life sentence; Joseph, John, and Tin-Ear weren’t even convicted. Lucky sons-of-bitches.

Tony realizes on the way to his execution that there’s no way to somehow evade death like Michael did; the electricity is guaranteed to kill him, no matter how tough he might think himself to be.

And as he’s strapped into the chair, he finds himself grimly realizing that maybe, somewhere up in heaven, that goddamn Michael Malloy is having the last laugh.

**Author's Note:**

> Can't believe I actually wrote this lmao  
> Anyways, thanks for reading! [Here's a few more](http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-man-who-wouldnt-die-89417903/) [links on Iron Mike](http://womenincrimeink.blogspot.com/2010/03/strange-death-of-mike-durable.html) if you're curious, and as always, feel free to check me out on [Tumblr](https://lesbiangffa.tumblr.com).


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